Rerun handling

[Watter]

Ok, I know that Sage TV won't record two instances of my favorite if they are the same episode. What I'd like to know is what timeframe is used to determine when it's too soon to rerecord the same episode of a favorite.

The reason I ask is that I have a couple of syndicated shows on my favorites list and it seems like I'm getting the same episodes (from a different channel, of course) a little too soon for my liking.

For instance, Episode 13 will show on one channel and SageTV will record it. I watch it and it gets marked as watched. A week later (it seems) the same episode shows up in my recordigns from a different channel.

-Watter

[mlbdude]

I have several shows that keep recording even though I have watched them. Some will record over and over even though they have been watched and are even still in Sage. I think the problem is actually with the tv program data though and not Sage. It seems that lots of shows have titles only and no description so other than the show ID in the data I don't know how Sage would be able to tell.

[Watter]

Just to be clear, I'm not having the problem described by mlbdude. I'm not getting duplicate shows immediately after each other.

Ok, here's an exact example. I have the FX channel. Anyone who ever watches that channel knows that it shoudl actually be called the M.A.S.H. channel.

I have M.A.S.H. setup as a favorite. An episode get recorded called "Dear Dad". Iw atch that epidode and it gets marked as watched and drops to the bottom of my guide and is removed pretty quickly. If that episode were to be show the next day, SageTV woudl be smart enough to know not to record it again, because it was just recorded and watched a day earlier. However, if that episode were to be shown two weeks later, some arbitray time period (and this is the tiem period that I'd like to determine and change, if possible) will have passed and the episode will be recorded again.

What I'd like to find out is if I can maually set, via properties file or whatever, the time period that SageTV will wait before allowing the system record a previously watched episode of a favorite. Right now, that time period is a little low for my tastes. I find myself constanly manually deleting episodes of shows that I just saw a few weeks ago and don't want to see again yet.

-Watter

[dkardatzke]

Watter,

Are you using the SageTV Service for Guide Data or an XMLTV plugin?

[Watter]

I use the SageTV guide service, not XMLTV.

Again, I hope I didn't come off wrong. There's nothing wrong with the way everything is working. SageTV IS getting enough guide data to recognize episodes. I'm just wondering if I can increase the period between which SageTV says it's ok to record the same episode.

Heck, at this point, I'd settle for even know what that duration is. How long after a specific episode is recoded will SageTV wait before recordign that same episode again? Two weeks? Three?

-Watter

[Narflex]

The duration is infinity; it'll never record it again if you've already watched it. And there's no property setting to change it.

[mlbdude]

Jeff,

What does Sage use to determine if a show has been watched already? Is there a unique ID it gets from the providor or is it a title\description comparison? I notice that shows without descriptions give me the post problems. Show that work though are never recorded a second time for me.

[Watter]

Infinity? You mean if I watch an episode of Law & Order and the rerun shows 4 months later, it won't be recorded?

-Watter

[dkardatzke]

Originally posted by Watter
Infinity? You mean if I watch an episode of Law & Order and the rerun shows 4 months later, it won't be recorded?

-Watter

Yes

[olyar15]

Unless you delete the previous recording? I notice that once I watch a show and then delete it, it will be re-recorded if it comes up again, but if I still have the show on my hd, the show will not be recorded.

[Watter]

Originally posted by dkardatzke
Yes

Thanks. At least now I know what behavior to expect.

-Watter

[Narflex]

Charles, if you let SageTV automatically delete the show then it won't get recorded again.

[Watter]

Narflex, does it make any difference if we're talking about favorites setup to record reruns? I hope that the fact I was talking about M.A.S.H. made that point clear, although I should have stated that part explicitly.

-Watter

[mlbdude]

From my experience SageTV will only record a show once if it has been watched regardless of how you have your Favorite setup. If you want to see the episode again, you would need to clear the watched flag on it. If you delete it without setting the watched flag it will record it again. Could be wrong but that is how it seems to work for me.

[justme]

OK. Sorry if I misunderstood but, If I read this whole thread correctly then...

Infinity is too long. We need the ability to override this with a user specified duration. I understand that clearing the watched flag will "fix" this, but often you don't know what you want to watch again til several monthes later. Not to mention that remembering to always clear the watched flag from a favorite show is hard to remember and tedious. There are many shows like "Babylon 5" that I will always want to watch again when it is rerun by SciFi in about 3 monthes. "Law and Order" is another good example, and the list could go on...

Anyway this is a small thing. SageTV is a geat program and it just keeps getting better.

EDIT:OK we really need the ability to change this "don't record" setting from infinity to a user specified duration. I just found out that SageTV didn't record episode 11 of "Reign the Conqueror" on monday night. There was no conflict and all the other episodes of Reign have been recorded fine. I remember watching this episode in SageTV about a month and a half ago. Now I'm one episode short of all 13(the final airs tonight). I guess I'll have to wait til Adult Swim airs the series again if ever, and this time make them all manual recordings.

This is exactly the kind of thing that should not happen with SageTV. It's supposed to be about intelligent recording. Well if I record and save every episode up til now why wouldn't I want episode 11.
OK, Rant Over.

PLEASE, please add an option to overide this infinite duration.

[malore]

Originally posted by Narflex
if you let SageTV automatically delete the show then it won't get recorded again.

Why is it treated differently if you tell SageTV to delete the show than if it just runs out of space and is deleted?

It would be helpful if there was an addition recording option for reruns with duplicates which would record shows already watched but not currently on the harddrive. This is useful for keeping a couple episodes of children's programs that are constantly rotating, but have a limited pool of episodes.

[justme]

malore wrote:It would be helpful if there was an addition recording option for reruns with duplicates which would record shows already watched but not currently on the harddrive.

I'll vote for that.

EncoderHouse wrote:I have a 3 year old that uses Sage, I usually move those videos to the library, that way I can always have some on had when I need them. My son would freak if I lost his Bob the build, or Dora.

I'm 31 and as you can see from my post above I freak if I can't watch my classic Anime.


Actually I have long considered building a dedicated SageTV box and buying a Client license. I've gone as far as the videocard and have stopped for now. This never record a watched show issue is the reason for me holding off for now. There is no way that I can let SageTV become my primary TV viewer until it's resolved. My wife and I have very different schedules. Say she watches a show I want in "Live TV" mode. If I don't catch it before it's automatically deleted, then I'll never see it agian.

So now I just watch stuff on my TV or Tivo. Most of the time the same show is being recorded on SageTV. This way if I later decide to keep it I can move it to the library or archive(divx) it. I know that a lot of these shows are going to be archived even before I watch them. But for a new series you don't know if you like it enough to keep it til you've watched a couple of episodes. And even with a 160GB hard drive I can't afford to add that much to the library on the chance I may decide to keep it.

Still SageTV is better than my tivo already, and it just gets better with each new release. Maybe the studio version will allow me to change this behavior to my liking.

[mlbdude]

This is a concern for me too. I had to train my wife to remove the watched flag for shows I want to see too (but she does not always remember). I think on a favorite basis we should be able to set a rule to tell it to record shows even if they have been watched as long as they are not on the HD. I notice this property in the config file:

wizard/clearwatched=false

What is that for? Does it reset all watched flags to unwatched?

[justme]

wizard/clearwatched=false

What is that for?

Good question?

I looked at the properties file description at the SageTV developers site, and it's not listed. I guess it's a recent addition from one of the betas. Although when I did a very quick scan(by eyeball) of the PublicReleaseNotes.txt I didn't see anything about it. Hopefully Jeff will update the properties derscripions once the final release comes out.

Maybe if you ask this question in the 1.4.7 beta thread Jeff will answer it.

[mlbdude]

Actually I pulled that line out from my old 1.2.8 installation. I think it has been in there awhile. Maybe it does not do anything yet though.